


Avenue of Approach

by blacktail



Category: Homestuck, Problem Sleuth - Fandom
Genre: M/M, sniping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktail/pseuds/blacktail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most dangerous man in the city really should stop underestimating the most intelligent man in the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avenue of Approach

The winding nature of the staircase up the inside of the building made it all the more necessary for Droog to go carefully. Blind corners, high ground at every level. Stairs were dangerous. Closed, poorly lit stairways in a building controlled by the enemy were hell. He had the nerves and the patience to ascend with ease and caution alike, pistol in hand. A Thompson would have been overkill, bullets could have gone anywhere, including back at him. An automatic monster was not the weapon of choice for silent infiltrators.

  


          There was only one person he’d confirmed in the building, but indiscretion was what put Spades, Clubs and Hearts in the OR. Discretion kept Droog alive and well.

  


          His target was moving, but not far enough at any one time, all within this building.  
          The last shot had come from the sixth floor, by Droog’s estimate. It didn’t take much time to climb that many stairs, and there wasn’t power to the elevator. Elevators were even more dangerous than stairs, anyway—someone could cut the wires, greet a man with an unpleasant surprise after the doors rolled open. No, it was better to climb, and enter the row of disused apartments through a door at the end of the hall in a small alcove than come strolling out through the lift. A shot fired. He was on the right floor. A high-powered rifle, close. No more than three rooms down. It left a vibration in the air, and Droog wondered who it had cut down, if the shot was through the heart or the brain, or perhaps a nonlethal blow that would shatter the tibia….  
          One of their workers, no doubt. It was a Sleuth-versus-Crew kind of night. The Crew had gotten in on some legitimate business territory, trying to make it a bit less legitimate, and the owner had hired the detectives to see what they could find. It just so happened they found the Midnight Crew.  
          Their bad luck.  
          He knew the sniper would not fell  one of the main Crew. There was no reason to, because they both knew no one would kill Dick or Sleuth. Crew-Detective dynamics had grown complicated. So long as no one in the Crew legitimately threatened the lives of Team Sleuth, they would not find themselves centered in deadly crosshairs.  
          The door was open, likely for quicker, easier movement between positions. Too easy. Too silent. Droog was a breath, crossing the room light and soundless as air. His target knelt at the window, butt of a rifle pulled back against his shoulder, his eye to the scope. He was shaking visibly, the window open, no heat in the building, the frosty chill seeping in from outside. He wore no gloves, his fingers bare on his weapon, the metal and plastic of which the mobster knew from experience would be of no warmth. He was within feet, unnoticed, as a small earpiece wrapped around the shell of the man’s ear rattled off words Droog could not make out. The flip of a card, and he held his cuestick as well as his gun.  
        “You look cold, Inspector.”  
        To a more casual onlooker, someone less experienced with both Pickle Inspector and marksmanship, it would have looked like the detective spun around with a flailing fear. It was a very surprised about-face, yes, but not without control. The rifle did not move more than when Inspector’s shoulder moved away from it, did not jerk or fall. Though the man on the floor was wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, shivering, he did not do anything stupid. He did not pull a key, did not radio for help. Droog leveled his cue, the tip under Inspector’s chin, easily balancing the weight and moving it precisely even in his left hand. It was an extension of his body, regardless of how he held it.  
        “Mmm-Mister D-Droog. I…I w-was w-w-wondering, where, ah, where…you were.” He flinched as Drood tilted his face up. He made an obvious oversight. He should have known someone was coming for him, and he realized it. He understood his mistake quite well.  
        “You’ve ignored many rules tonight, Inspector. I am disappointed in you. You stayed in one place for too long. You overlooked one of your targets. How very…amateur.” The point of the Ace of Diamonds pressed a bit harder against his throat, bobbed with his Adam’s apple. Droog’s words seemed to sadden him. The two had developed a sort of mutual respect based on capability and refinement. For one to find the other lacking, hurt.  
        “I…I w-was m-more c-concerned with…k-keeping my eyes on S-S-Sleuth.”  
        “Your mistake, then. Get up.” Though Droog was tall, he often forgot that Pickle Inspector was taller. The lanky man would often slouch, or curl up. Hauling him to his feet and putting a gun to his chin made him straighten up, and he had at least three inches of height advantage. He could look down at Droog, and did. It was with fear, however.  
        It was always an easy thing to throw Inspector around. He was thin, poor of balance, physically weak. When Droog tugged him across the room and shoved him into a wall he stumbled along, yelping as his back impacted. The gun did not waver from the soft spot under his mouth, he was never any safer or in any more danger than he was intended to be.  
        The demands came harsh and fast. “How many have you shot?”  
        “T…ten.”  
        “How many were kill shots?”  
        “I…  
        The pistol pressed against him a little harder. “How many people have you killed tonight, Inspector?” Droog savored the reaction, a cringing that had nothing to do with his voice or the gun. It was internal, and raw. Pickle Inspector did not like that part of his job. He did not savor the blood and shards of skull and pieces of brain that such high-caliber bullets could draw. Hated it, in fact. Every life he took weighed on him, heavily, and he likely would have preferred Droog grind his fingers under fine leather shoes than rub those kills in.  
        “Th…th-three. I…they were…they c-caught…caught D-Dick and h-h-had guns, and if, if I didn’t f-f…finish them, they w-would have…would have gotten him.”  
        “Oh, Inspector. You think you need to justify it to me?” To keep him off-balance, off-guard, Droog pulled and pushed him again. This time, he followed PI’s body against the wall, pinning him there and stealing a rough kiss. The detective’s hands flailed, scrabbling against Droog’s coat, squirming and alarmed. This stuttering, weak sleuth was a very efficient killer, and he was aware of it, perfectly cognizant of his own dark doings. The man’s perfect brain, frankly, made the most deadly member of the already deadly Midnight Crew a bit hot under the collar.  
        There was nothing to be done but submit. Inspector was less likely to get shot if he cooperated, and as it was, there was some time before his mouth was free again. When it was he was panting, shivering, though no longer with cold. “Are…ahem. D-did y-you…come to k-k-kill me, Mister Droog? …or…?”  
        “Or what?” Purred, right against Inspector’s ear, words to mock him.  
        “Or…k-kiss me?”  
        “Neither.” The mobster pulled back a bit, sneering. “I was given vague directions, to…distract you. You are a problem. If I may say so, you seem quite distracted.”  
        Pickle Inspector closed his eyes. He was trying to focus, Droog had seen it before. He was distracted and wanted to get his mind back. That wasn’t acceptable. When he could think, he was dangerous. More dangerous than many gave him credit for, even without his rifle. Droog stole his attention again, slow and steady and undeniable, mouth working on his neck very close to the barrel of the pistol.  
        “Trouble focusing?”  
        “Why—wh-why do….” A quiet, involuntary sound vibrated out of his throat and he flushed. There went any possible attempts at appearing hard-boiled under enemy assault. Droog’s sneer widened. “ _Why do you do this?_ ”  
        “Would you rather I hurt you, Inspector?” His teeth pulled at skin, and the detective shivered. “I’m sure slowly breaking the bones of your fingers would do just as fine a job of keeping you occupied.”  
        “No. Nnn-no, I…w-would…v-very m-much prefer not.”  
        “Very good, then. Now, if you would be so kind as to make that sound again, we can continue.”  
        The distraction lasted as long as Slick had requested, because Droog received no further radio orders. After more than an hour of threatening and assuring and stringing Pickle Inspector out by turns, the assault relented. As quickly as the tide of Droog’s come-ons and gun-pointing had advanced, it retreated, and Inspector ended up exactly where he had started: Shuddering on the floor. He took a moment to collect himself, fold the bipod to his rifle and carefully put every piece away, and then left his perch as quickly as he could via the fire escape. He didn’t want to risk meeting Droog on the way down. From there, he ran. He needed to reach the rendezvous point as quickly as possible, before the hell hound known as Diamonds Droog caught his trail again.  
        “Objective complete,” he said quietly, depressing the radio in his ear.  
        “One o’clock and all is well,” Sleuth reported on the other end.  
   
        There was something deeply satisfying about making others uncomfortable while doing something he enjoyed. Considering the things Droog enjoyed, that wasn’t typically hard. It was especially easy with someone like the Inspector, who was made uncomfortable by so many things in the world. He left the dingy little apartment, descending the stairs much more confidently than he had gone up them. A job well done, indeed. Sniper: Distracted. Thoroughly.  
        Strange, though, that the Crew hadn’t checked in. They knew not to speak on his channel when he was stalking, but there had been radio silence. If something had gone wrong, they would have gotten through to him. If something had gone right, they would have pulled him out, too. There had been nothing.  
        He fished the radio out of his coat button, and discovered the problem immediately.  
        It was off.  
        It had been switched off.  
        There were no messages, because the radio was not working.  
   
 _“There are too many people for us to take on all at once. We need to even the odds up a bit, especially if the full crew comes out.” Sleuth had a diagram of the small warehouse and surrounding residential buildings spread out on the table. Dick and Pickle Inspector were observing, knowing their lives might depend on this plan. “Slick isn’t going to kill us. He’ll rough us up and we might even hope we’re dead by the end of it, but he won’t kill us. Neither will Clubs or Hearts. That leaves….”  
        “Droog.” Ace Dick and PI both nodded.  
        “Droog,” Sleuth agreed. “…he’d fill us full of lead faster than we’d be able to blink. If we can take him out of the equation, we’ll be able to trap the rest of the Crew. They’re not good with puzzle shit. DD isn’t an idiot, though.”  
        “Mmm…might I suggest a, erm, p-plan of attack?”  
        “‘Course.”  
        “He seems to…er…well, he rather…we’ve seen b-before that…..”  
        “Yeah,” Sleuth finished. He wouldn’t force the subject.  
        “I will s-set up h-here, in a s-sniping position. I will b-be able to c-cover you two, and d-draw his attention. He will w-want to…keep my weapon out of things, b-because he, he knows that I w-would sh-shoot the C-Crew, if…if they g-got too c-close.”  
        “…would you?” Sleuth hesitated, eyes on one of his two dearest friends. Meek, timid Pickle Inspector, talking about taking out the Midnight Crew from range. His face contorted and he wrung his hands, eyes on his feet. “Never mind. That’s all well and good, but what if he tries to off you up there, and there’s no one to help you?”  
        “I…w-will b-be able to l-l-look after….ah, my…myself. I am sure.”  
        “…okay, then. You’ll need to keep him from communicating with the Crew.”  
        “I’ll t-try to switch of h-his radio. He will b-be counting on it. I’ll g-get out through the fire escape b-before he, before he realizes.”  
        “And we’ll catch the rest of the Crew.”  
        “Yer braver’an people give ya credit for, Pickle.” The slap on the back from Dick almost sent Inspector double over the table, but he caught himself with just a wince. “S’a real stand-up thing, takin’ that on.”  
        “…yes. Y-yes…ups-standing.”_  
   
        “Mmm-Mister D-Droog. I…I w-was w-w-wondering, where, ah, where…you were.” He flinched as Drood tilted his face up. Sleuth was supposed to warn him, if he could, when Droog would be entering. He’d gotten no warning, but there’d been no trace of him when the rest of the Crew made their appearances. The shape of the hole where something was missing was often as telling as the presence of the thing itself.  
   
“You’ve ignored many rules tonight, Inspector. I am disappointed in you. You stayed in one place for too long. You overlooked one of your targets. How very…amateur.” The point of the Ace of Diamonds pressed a bit harder against his throat, bobbed with his Adam’s apple. Inspector’s face fell. He was the disappointed one. There was the bit of him that had hoped Droog wouldn’t fall for it, that the mobster would play the bigger game on Pickle Inspector’s level. All of the clues were right there, the little beginner things that a professional would not get wrong.  
Droog was a professional, but so was Pickle Inspector. The detective had been hoping this one person would not underestimate him. It made him sad. He didn’t need the gun against his chin to cooperate, because while Diamonds Droog was distracting him, he was distracting Diamonds Droog.  
   
        The hours he lost to Slick screaming at him were hours he could have spent finding and killing Pickle Inspector. He had to restrain himself for as long as he could after getting the other three members of his team out of that shipping container. Droog could have given back just as berating a speech regarding how all three of them had gotten trapped in one place. In the end he settled for Slick’s ire, and escaped as quickly as he possibly could.  
        It was humiliating. He had been played, perfectly, the bow pulled across his strings by a maestro. Played so hard he hadn’t even seen the game. On his way to the Inspector’s apartment, he fumed. No one had ever pulled that over on him. The way he had gone about it made it worse. He had clearly been predictable. Pickle Inspector had seen his weakness and exploited it, and his weakness was some brainy detective with a nice gun.  
        His knuckles were white clutching the steering wheel, because even thinking about how he had been run in a circle, Droog couldn’t help being impressed. Impressed enough to regret the Tommy gun he was going to unload in Inspector’s bedroom, just to make sure this wouldn’t happen again. To make sure no one would ever find out. His blood was running hot, and in that condition, people turned up dead. Usually in pieces.  
        The lock was easy to pick, but not easy to the point of suspicion. It was simply a shitty lock on a shitty apartment door, because Team Sleuth didn’t make enough money for better living conditions. The lights were off, but there was some light from a window, and it was enough. This would be it. He had to end…whatever it was that kept him tied up in that other person. He had failed in his job, and nothing ever made that acceptable, not soft lips or blond hair or quiet moans.  
        Quiet moans that had probably been completely orchestrated to keep him interested.  
        That son of a bitch.  
        There was no one in the small kitchen or living room, which was mostly one room. There wasn’t much room to hide in such a small place, not even behind the piles of books. There was no fort for grown men to sit in and play pretend, no one behind the wing-back reading chair, the bathroom was empty.  
        It was almost sad that such a brilliant man had condemned himself to a sub-par life by aligning himself with those two idiots and their shenanigans.  
        The bedroom door wasn’t locked. It opened, surprisingly, without a sound, and Droog raised the machine gun as he entered. He wouldn’t stop and have a conversation. Quite discourteous, but he would not allow himself a final conversation. Indulgences were what had gotten him into this mess. Last seconds were spent on just a twinge of regret. Anyone who could trick him, trip him up, was worth his attention, the same way any man as capably violent as he was deserved his note.  
        Three short bursts of fire, from the floor under the bed to the wall just above it, shredding the mattress, blankets, pillows, and the lump resting in a pathetic little nest in the middle of the bed. The flare, the rat-tat-tat of rapid fire bullets, the splat of something wet against the walls, took moments in reality but lasted some time in Droog’s mind. This was the end of something that had barely started, and never should have been to begin with.  
        The lights came up on a splintered mess of a bedroom.  
        Droog was not the one who had hit the switch.  
        “P-please put your weapon down.”  
        Son.  
        “I…I won’t ask again.”  
        Of.  
        “Droog.”  
        A.  
        “Really.”  
        _Bitch._  
        The mobster dropped the weapon. It wasn’t by his own free will, it was simply difficult to hold a heavy gun with a bullet in his shoulder.  
        “You… _please_  s-stop underestimating me. I…you…y-you b-bring this on yourself.” The mobster turned to face the man who was supposed to be blown into a high-velocity spray against his own walls. “I d-don’t like sh-shooting people. You know that.” He looked pained. He was shaking, he was always shaking, but the hand with the key in it was perfectly still. Hot blood poured from the entrance and exit wounds in his chest and back. It wasn’t a killing blow, but Droog couldn’t move his right arm. “I c-c-can’t underst-stand…why you d-don’t just….” The tall man was biting his lip. He was…angry. Droog had never seen him angry before. It was fascinating. He was embarrassed, bleeding, furious, and intrigued. Inspector was mad. Not sad, or upset, or anxious.  
        Mad.  
        “I k-keep giving you these ch-chances, and you just…I d-d-don’t understand. You…you l-like the w-way I think. How c-can you, can you not…not expect more f-from me?”  
        Mad, and disappointed, apparently. Droog was letting him down. If he was letting him down, Inspector had expectations, and they were high. As high as Droog’s, maybe. Higher, because apparently, Droog’s expectations needed some readjustment.  
        “You n-need…help. For y-your arm.”  
        Yes, he was starting to feel that. Light-headed. There was a lot of blood. It was soaking through his suit, and his coat.  
        “I have clearly underestimated you.” He worked his tongue, worked his brain, because things were starting to get a little fuzzy. “Twice. You…are more than you appear, Inspector.”  
        “Y-yes. Thank you.” He smiled, but it did not reach his large eyes. “Three times, however. I…it was…th-three. Today.”  
        Droog’s eyes drifted shut for a moment. “Three times. My apologies.”  
        “Accepted. Now, I…I can help y-you, if, if you’ll l-let me.”  
        “I think…I will need that.”  
        The Inspector did not lower his key, and approached slowly. “If I h-help you…w-will you k-kill me, or…?”  
        It was getting hard to breathe. That was a lot of blood. He still couldn’t move his arm. “Or what, Inspector?”  
        Gun still trained on the center of Droog’s chest, the dangerously thin investigator eased Droog’s coat from his shoulders and inspected the entrance hole he had left. A through-and-through shot, precisely as he had meant it, so as not to leave any fragments in the body. “I b-believe we…discussed these same, ehm…alt-ternatives, earlier this evening.”

  


The corners of Droog’s mouth turned up. He was hurt, cornered, torn down off of his high horse and dragged behind it across the battlefield. All of this by a frail, shivering man who remembered the face of every person whose life he took, and could actually feel things like guilt and care. Genius and weak and one step ahead of him all along the way. His choices were limited while he was losing blood.

  


  “I think…the latter could be arranged, Inspector.” For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he had lost too much blood, or if that was what swooning felt like.

  



End file.
